This invention addresses and solves the six primary shortcomings of existing prior art and current implementations of electronic tokens. The shortcomings being:
1. Tokens are issued by a commercial or government entity for a specific use within a limited environment. Such as the U.S. Department of Defense Common Access Card or the American Express Blue card. Use of the Common Access Card is limited to the Department of Defense, select government agencies, and specific authorized contractors. The American Express Blue card is limited to a select number of American Express customers and merchants, the electronic portion of the card holds little data and is not used by most of the merchants.
2. There is no certainty of the identity of the holder when prior art tokens are issued, nor is there high assurance the holder has not been issued a prior token under the same or different identity. The Department of Defense checks certain personnel records and files before issuing a Common Access Card. Based on the accuracy of the databases these checks may prevent issuance of a token under an assumed name. American Express performs a credit check before issuing a Blue card. There is no restriction that would prevent an individual from obtaining multiple American Express Blue cards under the same name. And with effort an individual can obtain one under a fictitious name. Other prior art use biometrics to provide a personal identification (U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,068 to Piosenaka et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,194 to Barbanell) but only in the context of matching a biometric stored on a token to a biometric captured at the time of identification request. In some instances of prior art multiple biometrics are stored on the token and matched off the token at time of use. This adds assurance the person is the one the token has been issued to, or for. It does not assure uniqueness in the issuance process.
3. In prior art data stored on the token is either not encrypted and easily machine readable or encrypted with a limited number of encryption keys thereby increasing the likelihood private data may become available to unauthorized parties. The possibility that data is released to unauthorized parties further restricts widespread use of prior art tokens and raise concerns of privacy advocates. Current standards published by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators explicitly states data stored on an electronic token (i.e. smart card) shall not be encrypted. Storing data on the token unencrypted raises a number of issues relating to privacy, security, liability, unauthorized data collection and generally limits acceptance of the prior art token. In another example the Department of Defense Common Access Card uses only one encryption key to encrypt all data stored on the token. This includes personnel as well as medical data. Anyone with the proper decryption key can read all of the information stored on the Common Access Card. Unauthorized access to medical data is a violation of Federal Law. Use of the Common Access Card outside the realm of the Department of Defense is in violation of Federal Law. Some prior art propose the use of multiple asymmetrical key pairs to encrypt data on the token. These have not been implemented. And the strength of the encryption algorithms is intentionally limited to weak/medium encryption to meet U.S. export restrictions on encryption technology.
4. Prior art that utilizes biometrics to validate the holder to the token match the biometric off the token. This requires the biometric template stored on the token be transferred from the token to an external processor. This process jeopardizes the security of the match in that the biometric template from the token once it leaves the token can be stored or transferred without the holder's knowledge or permission.
5. Prior art does not address universal real time authentication. American Express Blue embodies in the system real time authentication for the purpose of authenticating the token for a commercial transaction within a closed community. The Department of Defense Common Access Card relies on Public Key Infrastructure technologies for authentication. This has proven so cumbersome in practice the Department of Defense has declared the Common Access Cards to be valid for a period of two years from issuance.
6. In prior art data is stored on the tokens by the issuing authority. In the case of the Department of Defense Common Access Card the Department of Defense stores identification, personnel, and medical data on the token at issuance. This limits the validity of time sensitive data, such as rank and also raises policy issues of privacy of data.